Birthday Book Haul 🎁🎂🎈 2023 Edition!

It's a bit difficult to provide an introduction for this blogpost because my birthday was on 6 March. As you can see from the day when this is posted, some months have pasted since then. Life has been tedious and eventful at the same time. Anyway, today you get a birthday book haul as it is never too late to commemorate the love you get from family and friends. 

Misery by Stephen King (1987)

Paul Sheldon is a bestselling novelist who has finally who has finally met his biggest fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes and she is more than a rapid reader — she's Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house. 

I haven't read any Stephen King, but Misery has always intrigued me. Thanks to my best friend, I can finally read it!

A Night at the Bookstore by Mary Kontzoglou (2013)

Theologia works at a bookshop in Thessaloniki which stays up all night. Booklovers who can't sleep and need a distraction form life visit this bookshop called Moon to find some solace. Theologia is good at listening to people and giving them a bit of hope. Will she find hope for her own life? 

I did my best with the description above in order to do justice to this book because it is a Greek book that hasn't been translated into English. However, my sister knows me well and chose a book about books and Thessaloniki.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020)

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself?  Would any of these other lives truly be better? 

Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realising her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place. 

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (2013)

Cath and Wren are identical twins and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more — she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She would rather bury herself in the fanfiction she writes where there's romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life. 

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible... 

This book along with The Midnight Library were chosen by two new friends that I made and they did great!

As for the three following books, I chose and bought them myself with a gift card given to me by a good friend of mine. 

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1847)

Jane Eyre is a child born into unfortunate circumstances. Mistreated by her aunt and cousins and eventually sent away to a cruel boarding school, it is not until Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall that she finds happiness. Meek, measured, but determined, Jane soon falls in love with her brooding and stormy master, Mr Rochester, but it is not long before Thornfield's strange and unnerving secret begins to unravel. 

You by Caroline Kepnes (2014)

Joe Goldberg is  handsome, charming and ready to fall in love. And when aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten. He knows he has to see her again. So Joe does what anyone might: he looks Beck up online, and learns everything he can to set up another chance to meet her. Their chemistry is immediate. It seems like the perfect romance. 

But there's more to Joe than Beck realises... and more to Beck than Joe could ever guess. Their relationship soon spirals out of control, and the darkness they unleash will have deadly consequences for everyone in their lives. 

Release by Patrick Ness (2017)

It's Saturday, it's summer and, although he doesn't know it yet, everything in Adam Thorn's life is going to fall apart. But maybe, just maybe, he'll find freedom in the release. 

Time is running out though, because way across town, a ghost has risen from the lake. Searching, yearning, she leaves a trail of destruction in her wake...